Prior-art nut locking tools existed before the turn of the century, but they were quite different to serve different purposes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 241,353, issued to Grein on May 10, 1881, discloses an early wrench constructed to hold square nuts typically for use in oiling carriages without soiling of hands. The prior-art wrench has a lateral bend near it square nut clamp to allow hand grasping of a square nut well removed from a contact surface. Its lateral bend, necessitating the pivoting arms to pivot perpendicularly to the rotation of a nut being clamped, makes it inappropriate for any substantial torquing of a nut, especially in limited-access areas. The wrench is also distinguished in that it does not hold hexagonal nuts. These shortcomings make the prior-art wrench inappropriate for clamping and torquing a hexagonal nut in limited-access areas.
A more recent patent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,642,871, issued to Thuerig on Jun. 23, 1953, discloses a pair of locking forceps with tongs so designed to firmly grip tubular objects. The forceps comprise a pair of pivoted members, finger supporting means, and tongs having forward gripping edges. Unlike Grein's wrench, Thuerig's forceps has its pivoting members pivot parallel to the axis of a hypothetical tubular object being held. However, the gripping edges are neither ribbed nor shaped as a hexagonal recess.
British Patent Specification No. 1,417,637, issued to Beauchamp on December of 1975, discloses a hand tool comprising a pair of pivoting arms resembling a pair of pliers. As shown in FIG. 1, two ring halves may close to form a gripping recess having the outline of a twelve-pointed, or a double hexagon, nut. The plane of the two ring halves is inclined with respect to the general plane of the pivoting arms. The prior-art tool is intended for placing twelve-pointed nuts on threaded studs which are inaccessible. The prior-art tool is distinguished in that the gripping edges do not specifically form a hexagonal recess and the prior-art tool does not have locking extensions.
Heretofore, these prior-art tools were lacking in their attributes to clamp, hold, and torque hexagonal nuts of varying sizes in a limited-access working area. Such requirements are particularly useful in aircraft maintenance. When maintaining aircraft, loose tools, nuts, bolts, and other fasteners must be removed from the airplane before the aircraft can be considered airworthy.
Loose fasteners or tools may work their way into parts of the aircraft where that may jam control cables or cause other malfunction. Several air crashes have been caused by stray equipment of fasteners jamming or otherwise interfering with control mechanisms or other aircraft components. As a result, if a mechanic loses a fastener or tool, an aircraft may need to be further disassembled to locate and remove such stray fasteners before the aircraft can be put back in service. Such further disassembly, particularly in wings and the like may be very time consuming.
What is then required is a new and improved mechanics' limited-access nut starter instrument to more effectively clamp, hold, and torque hexagonal nuts of varying sizes in limited-access working areas. In addition, a means for holding and retaining tools when working in such limited access areas is also required.